“Why?” The young draykin seemed offended with the world, or at least with Zanzital.

Zanzital expected the other three to be outside the dungeon when he finished binding it. Instead, he found them waiting for him just inside the exit. Raz stood there indignantly and glared at Zanzital. Serenity looked almost as tired as Zanzital felt as he leaned against a tunnel wall. Blaze had a hand on Serenity’s shoulder and didn’t seem to react as Raz challenged the Guildmaster.

Zanzital frowned; his head hurt and he didn’t want to deal with whatever the child wanted. “Why what?”

Raz made a dismissive gesture with his hand; he seemed to think that Zanzital should already know the answer to the question. “Why did you bind the dungeon? He didn’t do anything wrong; it was a good challenge! There wasn’t anything unreasonable for the Tier.”

Zanzital rolled his eyes. He didn’t know where that nonsense came from. “Dungeons aren’t smart, boy. They have to be controlled or they act up. Maybe not immediately, but they will. That’s why they have to be tamed.”

“Trained,” Serenity interrupted. His eyes were closed, but Zanzital had the oddest feeling, like Serenity was looking through him. “Or perhaps taught. Dungeons vary, but most are smarter than you’re giving them credit for. Worlds have rules; Asihanya’s seem to be well developed.” He sighed. “I didn’t want to have this conversation here but I guess it was inevitable. Why do you bind dungeons?”

“They have to be controlled,” Zanzital repeated. “We can’t kill them all, that’s been tried. So the best thing to do is control them, the same way Order’s Guild controls Knives.”

“And controlling them lets you harvest them more easily, right?” Serenity’s voice sounded tired. “You’re not completely wrong, but you’re definitely not right. I don’t want Hollow Ones free in the world, but I also don’t like what you’ve done. Can I…”

Pain shot through Zanzital again. This time, when it cleared, words floated in front of Zanzital’s eyes. It was like the Voice speaking to him, but he knew it wasn’t the Voice.

[Choose]

[Dungeon Break]

[Control dungeon breaks / Accept overflow]

[Warning of dungeon breaks / No consequence]

[No ability to affect dungeon breaks / increased chance of monster cores in monsters released from dungeon]

[Floor Design]

[Complete Control / Inability to leave dungeon]

[Override control while in dungeon / invalid combatant]

[Non-Binding Suggestions / No consequence]

[Shortcuts / Reduced treasure]

[Rewards]

[Spontaneously generate award / Increased monster generation]

[Restrict awards offered while present / Altered monster difficulty]

[Alter reward types offered / No consequence]

Zanzital waved the words away, but they didn’t go anywhere.

[Choose]

He didn’t want to.The choices looked like they would all limit his power over the dungeon and that was something he didn’t want to do. There was no reason to, anyway; he owned the dungeon. That was what binding it was for.

[Then I will choose for you]

[Warning of dungeon breaks]

[Non-Binding Suggestions]

[Spontaneously generate award / increased monster generation]

[The Lord of Dungeons has shown you mercy I would not have.]

When Zanzital opened his eyes, the other three were gone. He almost wondered if they were just figments of his imagination; he had an absolutely blinding headache.

He didn’t mention it when he saw them again and neither did they. It was enough to make him wonder; maybe he really had imagined it. The only thing that indicated that it might have been real was that as soon as they were all through the portal to Takinat, Serenity’s group left the node immediately.

Zanzital didn’t mind that. He had things to do. The first was to check his messages; he also had a report to send. Maybe more than one report; the Viper clearly came out of the Empire and while the House of Seven Blossoms wasn’t something Zanzital had ever heard of, his employer might have.

The very first message made Zanzital sigh. It was only a few days old, but it was the sort of thing he’d normally have responded to faster.

Zanzital Aniza Zitanar,

A Great Treasure of the Empire has been opened on your planet, near your location. Details are sparse, but it is highly magical and almost certainly located at a ley line nexus. Someone is either dead for the violation or they control it; your task is to find out which and capture or kill the controller if there is one. If there is no controller, do not attempt to take control yourself; simply send word when you have located the Treasure.

The Treasure is believed to be a vault. The contents are unknown but deadly; past treasures of this type have led to great suffering when they were investigated, including widespread devastation of their surroundings. I repeat, DO NOT investigate it yourself. You are undead, but one of the past sites released a plague that spread to the undead as well as the living.

We have only one additional clue, a mana signature that is likely tied to the opening. It is attached.

Long live the Emperor!

Zanzital closed his messages. He was far too tired to look at a mana signature tonight.

---

Raz helped Blaze pick up Serenity. He knew he wasn’t taking the man’s full weight, but he still expected him to weigh more. Blaze did and he was both less muscular and not wearing armor, even if he was almost the same height.

“You’ll have to ask Serenity why he handled that the way he did when the idiot wakes up,” Blaze told Raz. “I can guess, but it’s better to get it from him.”

“That’s not it,” Raz shook his head. Blaze was much better at reading tail position than Serenity was, but no human was really all that good. “I mean, I’m going to ask, but that’s not what’s odd. Why is he so light?”

Blaze chuckled at that. “He’s a dragon. You’re light for your size, too, when you’re in your dragon form.”

Raz ducked his head uncomfortably. He still wasn’t happy that Blaze had to come to his rescue in the Bouncing Rabbit dungeon. He’d taken Rissa there to teach her and ended up having to have her run out of the dungeon to get Blaze. Sure, he’d waited outside for them, but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing. He was supposed to be there for messing up with the dungeon, not for Skill tutoring!

It was even worse because Blaze had figured out that all he had to do was get Raz outside the dungeon and the Skill would deactivate. Raz should have known that; the same thing happened when he left Aki. The fact that this was a Skill from his new Dungeon Dragon Path didn’t change things. He hadn’t activated the Skill since then, even though he’d been through several dungeons; he’d wait until he got back home to play with shapeshifting.

Then Raz realized the difference. “Serenity’s in his human form.”

Blaze chuckled. “Serenity doesn’t have a human form. He can sort of fake it, and he doesn’t want to hear it, but he’s definitely closer to dragon than human even without wings.”

Serenity was already stirring as Blaze carried him over to a tree, so Raz took a position nearby and waited. He’d ask after they were well away from Zanzital; a united front was better when dealing with an enemy. It was better to seem united in public even if he disagreed in private.

---

Serenity,

You don’t know me, but I feel like I should introduce myself before I ask anything of you. My name is Esmy Tillon; I am the resident Hand for Asihanya. I have been here for more than a century. Until recently, I was based out of Stallet Center; since it was the city that grew up around Stallet Academy, it was a good place to watch. I had several Knives that helped, scattered around the planet. Some are still in place.

I know that you are on Asihanya and that the Voice has concluded that you are an acceptable authority to stand in for the Sovereign that does not exist when you are closer than I am. I do not know why you are here, but if you need aid or information about the planet, let me know. It is my duty and my pleasure to assist missions assigned by the Voice; I have not received one in decades.

As you probably already know, many of the cities of Asihanya have been attacked by outsiders over the past year. While I do not have a Quest from the Voice to repel them, I also have no Quest to aid them. I am trying to deal with them anyway; this is my home and I choose to defend it. We have managed to free several areas over the past year. If your Quest does not prohibit it, I would appreciate your aid in this matter.

Esmy Tillon

Hand of Order’s Guild

The words swam in front of Serenity’s vision as he tried to pull himself together. He remembered getting pissed at Zanzital on behalf of the dungeon that was screaming at him for help and doing something to bring things back into alignment, but it took him a moment to remember what he’d done.

He’d altered Zanzital’s link to the dungeon. It was no longer one-way; instead, what he did in and to the dungeon also affected the Dungeon Binder. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was better than nothing. He didn’t like leaving the dungeon bound; the idea was intensely uncomfortable. At the same time, he knew just how dangerous Hollow Ones were, even weakened the way those dungeon monsters were, so having someone who had an incentive to not let them spread was useful.

He picked himself up off the ground and tried to look fine by the time Zanzital came out. He probably wasn’t doing a great job of it, but he didn’t think Zanzital noticed; the other man looked even worse. Undead didn’t normally get nauseous, but that was a good description of what it looked like.

Serenity wasn’t looking forward to explaining his decision to Raz, but the draykin held off on his questions until they were back at the Great Library. It gave Serenity time to think, and it occurred to him that he might have the perfect distraction. If he remembered correctly, Raz was from Stallet, the same city that Esmy Tillon said she was from.

He probably shouldn’t use it. It was better to explain himself.

Once the doors closed, Serenity turned to Raz. “I did what I could. I couldn’t just kill him; while I don’t like binding dungeons, I know why people do it. Just breaking the binding wouldn’t accomplish much; he’d be able to just come back and reestablish it. Plus, the Hollow Ones are a real threat, one I can’t be here to prevent. I considered killing the dungeon over them; this seemed better. He’ll have some control, but some limits too.”

Serenity decided not to mention that he wasn’t entirely certain what form the limits would take. It was the first time he’d done what he was pretty sure was technically a miracle, an Intent-based spell that used Faith as well as mana. Hopefully they would take less out of him once he had the Skill; he felt strained even though he had enough mana back that he wasn’t in danger of passing out anymore.

Raz looked like the wind was taken out of his sails by those sentences. He started to say something, stopped, then tried again. “Out of everyone studying dungeons, there were only three of us that wanted to study dungeons as dungeons rather than as resources. The other two both wanted to bind them. It’s easier and unless you’ve ever met a free dungeon, why wouldn’t you just take the reliable path? Making friends instead of servants is hard. Especially since most dungeons can’t talk.”